As Mark Robinson completed his rapid six-year rise from conservative Internet sensation to Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, he worked tirelessly to sell his political vision to evangelical Christians.
Traveling from church to church and ranting on social media, he condemned “transsexual” and “homosexuality” as “filth.” He said that Christians should be led by men, not women. And in at least one instance, he specifically called for overturning the American tradition of God’s role in government.
“People talk about separation of church and state,” Mr. Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, said in a speech in October. “I’m trying to find that phrase somewhere in our Constitution. Trying to find it somewhere in our Declaration of Independence. I try to find it in the writings of any patriot, anywhere, and cannot. And I can’t because it doesn’t exist.”
And he concluded: “There is no separation of church and state.”
Mr. Robinson’s long history of inflammatory statements has generated a deluge of headlines since he became the Republican standard-bearer in this year’s most-watched governor’s race. But beneath his militant pronouncements on race, abortion, education and religion lies an ultra-right-wing worldview—deeply rooted in modern evangelical Christianity—that would make him one of the most conservative governors in America if elected.
Mr. Robinson telegraphed, often in bombastic terms, how far to the right he would try to push North Carolina, supporting a ban on all abortions once a heartbeat is detected, calling for transgender women to be arrested if they don’t use their bathroom. gender assigned at birth, and urging the introduction of prayer in schools.
As he runs to replace term-limited Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and give Republicans full control of state government, Mr. Robinson has shown no sign that he plans to soften his message for the November general election. He may see a plausible path to victory through his appeals to the Christian right, given North Carolina’s huge evangelical community: About 35 percent of the state’s adults identify as evangelical Protestants, according to the Pew Research Center.
Still, Democrats characterize Mr. Robinson as a radical — “grim and divisive, consumed by hate and hate,” as his November opponent, Josh Stein, the state attorney general, said in his victory speech this month. And even some Republicans worry he will struggle to win.
“Governors have to be able to project stability to solve people’s problems,” said Paul Shumaker, a veteran Republican strategist in North Carolina. “And the question will be how, given Mark Robinson’s comments, how can he project stability to be able to deal with the problems that people expect their governor to deal with?”
His approach is similar to that of former President Donald J. Trump, whose messaging also seems more likely to increase base turnout than to win over moderates or independent voters — and who has also focused on evangelicals. The former president told pastors at a Christian media gathering last month that he would unleash their political influence, promising: “You’re going to use that power at a level you’ve never used it before.”
Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Robinson has made the inflammatory comments a political draw.
He has made comments widely regarded as anti-Semitic. He once quoted Adolf Hitler on Facebook. He described survivors of the Parkland school shooting who pushed for gun control as “spoiled, angry, know-it-all kids.”
And Mr. Robinson, his state’s first black elected lieutenant governor, has disparaged the African-American community as one that “celebrates the very lawlessness and violence that is killing its future right in front of them.” He also called black Americans “hypocrites who stay silent while they kill each other in abortion clinics and gang shootings, but then raise hell when a white cop shoots a black criminal.”
A spokesman for Mr. Robinson, Mike Lonergan, said in a statement that the candidate was “a man who is very bold and honest about his Christian faith” and added that as lieutenant governor, Mr. Robinson believed that “we do not live in a theocracy, we live in a constitutional democracy”.
“If and when he becomes governor, he will take the oath and duties of his office with the utmost respect, working to make North Carolina better for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. by growing our economy, reforming our schools and creating a culture of life that does more to support mothers and families,” said Mr Lonergan.
Mr. Robinson, 55, a former furniture factory worker, married with two children, burst onto the political scene with a fiery speech defending gun rights at a 2018 Greensboro City Council meeting that garnered millions of views online. He quickly parlayed that reputation into speaking gigs at gun rallies and then applied for lieutenant governor, winning the position in 2020.
Mr. Robinson has the advantage of running in a right-leaning state that has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2008. But Democrats, including President Biden, see North Carolina as newly competitive thanks to its rapid demographic changes, with more people of color moving there .
The state has also proven reluctant to elect a Republican as its leader, electing only one to the governor’s office since 1993.
That lone GOP governor, Pat McCrory, said in an interview that Mr. Robinson was part of a growing trend of candidates who “tell people what they want to hear, not necessarily what they need to hear.” He added that outrage and controversy were not necessarily attractive to a governor.
When voters look to Mr. Robinson, Mr. McCrory asked, “will they see a CEO?”
Some Republican leaders in the state say they have asked Mr. Robinson and his team to address his more troubling past remarks. They worry he will alienate moderate voters and lose vital funding, with Mr Stein and allied groups widely expected to boost Mr Robinson.
“We’re going to have an intense conversation about Mark — about where he’s going, what he can do or what he needs to do to deal with the issues in front of him, because he needs to deal with them head on,” Wayne Shafer said. the chairman of the Bladen County Republican Party.
Mr. Robinson has often appeared at evangelical churches, where he espouses some of his more conservative views.
“That baby in your womb is not a mass of cells, and if you kill that child, you are guilty of murder,” he said in August 2021 at Christ’s Upper Room Church of God in Raleigh.
That same summer, he told colleagues at Asbury Baptist Church in Seagrove, NC, that “there’s no reason why anybody anywhere in America should be telling any kid about being transgender or homosexual or any of that shit. And yes, I called it dirt.”
As lieutenant governor, Mr. Robinson also holds a seat on the state board of education. Immediately after taking office in 2021, he convened a task force to “prove” that racial and sexist “indoctrination” was prevalent in North Carolina schools by soliciting complaints from parents through an online portal.
They poured in, and the task force’s report was filled with anonymous anecdotes about racial and LGBTQ issues arising in schools, as well as some accusations of negative teachings about Christians.
With this conservative backlash, the state legislature passed a bill in 2022 to limit how racism and sexism are taught. Mr. Cooper vetoed the measure.
Mr. Robinson has also blamed the lack of formalized religion in public schools as a cause of social problems such as school shootings.
“Don’t you think that maybe if in the homeroom, before school started every day, if you sang ‘Amazing Grace,’ giving some praise to God and bringing his word back into that school, his wisdom back into those schools , maybe in these? wouldn’t I get shot at first?’ said Mr Robinson at an evangelical event in November 2021.
He met regularly with religious groups during his tenure. In January 2023, she met with the NC Values Coalition, a conservative organization, to discuss banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected — which is usually about six weeks before many women know they’re pregnant.
Intrigued, Mr. Robinson asked which lawmakers needed encouragement to support such a measure, according to records obtained by American Oversight, a watchdog group.
The NC Values Coalition followed with sample legislation and targeted nine state senators and 26 state representatives. Mr. Robinson’s chief of staff distributed the list to other members of his office for review, the records show.
Although the so-called heartbeat bill ultimately failed to pass the legislature, Republicans used their supermajority to pass a 12-week abortion ban in May.
On one of the biggest priorities for Mr Trump and his loyal followers – denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election – Mr Robinson kept a little more distance.
He supported legislation that would tighten election laws and give Republicans more control over local election boards. And he testified before the US House of Representatives against a Democratic-backed ballot measure.
But campaigners in North Carolina say he has sent them mixed messages, expressing his intention to meet with them but declining invitations to join their internal calls and meetings. He also ignored their calls for a “forensic audit” of the 2020 results, they said.
“He gives great speeches, but not on our issues,” said Jay DeLancey, who founded a group that has pushed baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
However, he said, he planned to support Mr Robinson in the autumn.
Eduardo Medina contributed to the report.
